


And, When He Shall Die, Take Him and Cut Him Out in Little Stars

by painted_pain



Category: Supernatural RPF
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Mental Breakdown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-01
Updated: 2012-04-01
Packaged: 2017-11-02 21:01:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/373308
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/painted_pain/pseuds/painted_pain





	And, When He Shall Die, Take Him and Cut Him Out in Little Stars

The wind is fast and cold, arctic fire burning him, peeling the skin back from his face and it hurts but he smiles into it. The snow pellets of slicing ice lance through his skin and cut and cut and cut until he is strung up with bloody wire along the stars by his gut, immortal and perfect and permanent, nothing but a twinkle in the sky.  _You are now and forever. You are in the stars._   
  
The stars are out tonight. The moon is full and bright and there are no shadows on the pavement because they are following  _him_ , swirling around his feet and caressing his calves clad in denim. It’s just an average street in the city, a back alley, really, surrounded by tall, empty buildings devoid of light and hope, oh so lost, leaning towards each other in despair. And everything is so, so quiet and still, the only sound the rustle of the wind and the paper it throws about, and the sound of their footsteps. There is no one else around. This is their time, their alone time. And he’s so in sync with  _him_ , with that tall, shaggy-haired man in his dreams, the one that has followed him all night, that his own footsteps can’t be heard. They are together, one and the same, two halves made whole and  _yes. Now, right now, do it, do it now. He’s yours, take him. Take him!_   
  
He lunges forward, a leap of grace and fear and pain and love and loneliness all tangled up in his legs and they give him wings so he flies, high, so high, as high as a kite,  _you can touch the sky, it all belongs to you._  And he lands, with a thump and a push and a sound that comes from  _his_  mouth, a shout and a scream and a curse. It sounds like everything he has been missing, like he has lost something. But how could he have lost anything when he has found it? All in one piece, together now and forever. He hasn’t lost anything. No, no, he hasn’t, but there are screams in his head that tell him different, that tell him everything he loves has been lost, gone, gone far away and dead and left him bleeding.  _Look, look, you haven’t lost anything, he’s right here, right here, he’s yours_  and he smiles because it has to be the truth. He always knows the truth.   
  
His hands cupping  _his_  face, thumps stroking across too-cold skin, the curve of cheekbones, sliding off and away, like  _he’s_  an illusion, a dream he can’t keep a grip off. He leans forward and kisses that plush mouth, the soft cotton candy bow and it tastes sweet, oh so sweet and there are little pants and puffs of air all around him. He surges forward and kisses him and wraps him up and swears that this time, this time, he won’t ever let him go.   
  
Hands reach up and shove at him, reach around and pound at his back, knees shove up and feet kick. It’s a struggle. He’s struggling and that hurts more than the scrapes  _his_  nails are digging into the skin on his face.   
  
“Jared,” he whispers, “Jared, what are you doing? I’m here now. I’m not leaving you ever again.” And he wipes away the tears that are streaming from </i>his</i> eyes, licks up all that salty goodness because it belongs to him anyway.   
  
“Please,” Jared sobs, “let me go, let me go. I’m not -- please, don’t hurt me, don’t, God, please. I have a wife --“   
  
He slaps him across the face, hard and stinging, and then slaps him again. He grips Jared’s throat, shoving him against the brick wall, tips of his fingers burrowing themselves into the soft flesh of his neck. It’s too soft, too thin, too pale, what --  _no, no, he’s yours, he’s yours, you own everything, the stars and the moon and the sky, he is yours_ .   
  
“Jared, why would you say that? Why would you say that? It’s me, it’s Jensen. I love you -- why would you -- Jared, I love you!”   
  
And Jensen steps up close again and kisses him, soft and tender and loving and when he pulls back, Jared’s eyes are too dark and shadowed, too scared and wet and weeping and they aren’t happy tears. This isn’t right, the world is tilting sideways and Jensen slips with it, falling and falling and he can’t see anything, everything black and swirling and destroying and painful.   
  
But he hears, “Please, I’m not Jared. My name is Brian, I have a wife and two kids, please, God, please -- “   
  
And Jensen remembers, with crystal clarity that cuts him to ribbons, that rips him up and slashes through his heart. He remembers how Jared had stood, strong and tall and proud and menacing, tanned skin and dark, bottomless ocean eyes, how he had stared down the other man, at least six inches shorter, saying “C’mon, man, this isn’t the way to go.” Jensen remembers how kind Jared had been, despite it all, always too kind and caring, and how that man had had a gun, flashing silver in the liquid moonlight and how Jared couldn’t out-menace that, couldn’t be kind to implacable metal.    
  
Jensen remembers the shot ringing out in the night, then the second and third and fourth and fifth. He remembers stumbling and falling to his knees and seeing a broken body on the ground, how those lifeless limbs were strewn about like nobody cared but Jensen had cared, Jensen always cared and he could see the blood pooling around him, how the blood was pouring from his own stomach and how it didn’t hurt, how Jared’s eyes weren’t oceans anymore, just dead. Dead, dead, dead, dead, dead.   
  
And Jensen remembers the precise moment when his mind snapped, broken bits left scattered across a body in an alleyway.   
  
He remembers and he lets this other man go, a voice in his head screaming at him  _he’s yours, he’s always been yours!_  but Jensen doesn’t care and he hurts so much.    
  
“I’m sorry,” he whispers to the wind and the world, “I’m so, so sorry.”   
  
He slumps the ground, seeing blood on his hands and his jeans and splattered all along the pavement. He blinks, everything whirring down, closing for the night, closing for forever, and Jensen just -- lets it.   
  
He lets go and sinks sideways, and onto his back, staring up at the stars, the stars that are his and Jared’s, all those secret places they had planned castles in the sky. He smiles, eyes unblinking and the pain is gone now, gone, gone, gone, just like Jared and just like him. He’s going and the voice in his head has finally shut up.    
  
And with his last thought, he remembers how once, when they were sixteen, sitting on a blanket on the back of his truck, Jared had promised him the stars and then had kissed him for the very first time.


End file.
